


Let me in (please)

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 22:14:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18352760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: Prompt - Instead of Henry showing up on Emma's door step in 1x01, it's Regina instead.Asked by anon





	Let me in (please)

**Author's Note:**

> (Canon from 3x09 was used for this one. Well, not exactly but that’s something I’m taking into consideration)

Regina eyed the door in front of her, hand-wringing while trying to calm her breathing. Neither the words written in the surface of the yellow-painted door nor the numbers at the left side of the doorframe would have led to suspect no one but a normal person lived there and yet the brunette could almost feel the presence of a maddening giggle echoing inside her brain, carved out of her memories in a sickening swirl.

The ride to Boston had been tiring but her muscles weren’t all that bothered by the tense nervousness that had filled her hands as she had maneuvered the steering wheel, the pull the town line always created on her whenever she crossed the border fainter than her worry. She, however, found herself unable to knock on the door, suddenly unsure.

And how much she hated herself for that. As mother would have said she was being soft, stupid. A Queen should never worry, a Queen did what it needed to be done.

The thought didn’t make her raise her hand however and so she stood there for a few more seconds, shoulders rigid and heart pumping on her ears. She ultimately didn’t have any choice and so, channeling everything she had into that movement, she extricated her right hand from her left and knocked once, twice.

She didn’t hear anything at the other side of the door for a few seconds but, at the end, the ruffling of keys jingling about and some muttered curses reached her just as the door began to open; blonde locks and green eyes the first thing she saw. Eyes that were shaped in a very distinctive way.

She had wondered over the years how would the woman that was now standing in front of her dressed as if she had just arrived home with one high heel dangling from the hand that wasn’t hidden behind the door looked. She had wondered while smirking and looking down at who now went by Blanchard, as she asked while pretending to feign worry about Storybrooke’s mysterious John Doe. She had gotten the blonde hair right, she guessed, the princess curls almost making her snarl.

Yet, she hadn’t considered how much like Henry the woman would be, how her chin would be something the boy shared with her, how the curve of her nose was distinctively reminiscent of Snow White herself. And so, despite everything, she stumbled for words for a second in the most unceremonious way.

“Can I help you?”

The question wasn’t hostile, but the blonde’s tone was laced with mistrust and Regina blinked as she realized her failure on being unable to school her features better from the other. Green eyes slightly narrowed, suspicious, the blonde tilted her head as she eyed her up and down; taking on the gray cocktail dress Regina had chosen to wear that morning. One she had realized far too late that wasn’t comfortable for driving already far too late into the journey, only one thought on her mind.

And, while worry was eating her, Regina had been a politician for a really long time, even before she fully had the word on her vocabulary. Pursing her lips together, she nodded once, palms stilling, arms relaxed at last.

Mother would be proud.

“As a matter of fact, I think you can.”

The blonde let her enter into the apartment, not without following her movements closely as she picked up the high heel and put it back into her feet, gaining an upper hand Regina didn’t feel exactly comfortable with but knew that it was probably a necessary evil. Eyeing the apartment, she nodded to herself; the place looked lived in, yes, but ascetic in the way someone didn’t know how to fill such space. She found herself glancing outside, at the city that spread and rose around it and she could only feel fear at what could be Henry feeling.

He had never been out of their small town after all. Had never been in a place where buildings towered above him, where people weren’t the same he had watched every day. A detail that also irked her and left her at loss; 28 years far too many for any honing on social skills.

But her nerves didn’t matter, not when everything she had to go by was a hastily made search on his computer by Graham, a fading trail of a credit card and just a simple question ringing on her ears.

_“Am I adopted?”_

The blonde’s voice… no, not the blonde. Her name was Emma Swan. She had been able to read the file, follow that particular line of clues almost 10 years ago when she had almost taken the potion, believing, trusting, that she was doing a good thing. Until, of course, everything zeroed into a very simple and yet loaded line. “ _Put her child first.”_

She had been trying to calm Henry’s cries, a tale, a simpler version of her conundrum, falling from her lips as she mixed and measured, as she tried to not check the original recipe, afraid that after 18 years she had forgotten how to make it work. Yet, when those words had left her lips a very different voice had rose from her lungs; a voice she had feared, had wished it gone.

Mother.

And so, she had dropped the cup, the remains of a still unmade potion sizzling on the floor, the resulting smoke making her cough and hastily rise Henry up, trying to protect him from the fumes.

She was many things, had been many others, but she wasn’t her mother. And so, she had kept the secret, pushing it to the very limits of her conscious mind. And yet, here she was, about to ask a question, about to plead for a deal, with who she knew was the one destined to undo her.

If they had been back at Storybrooke everything could be very different, but they were in Boston and so, she returned to look at the other woman. Trying to look past the similarities; the ones that tied her to the boy she loved with everything she had, everything she was and everything that had been left of her once the curse had struck, she did a very similar once-over the other woman had just done to her. Which was enough to grant her a widening of the woman’s eyes and just something close enough to a cocky smirk.

“I don’t make consultations so late in the night.” Emma’s voice was melodic, and Regina needed a moment to re-center herself as she kept trying to pluck that inner strength created by her anger and hate so she was able to mask away everything she didn’t need the other woman to read on her. So far, however, that side was mute.

Rolling her shoulders, she turned her back to the windows of the apartment and eyed the other woman as the blonde approached the kitchen counter; carefully, as if she wasn’t really accustomed to wear the heels that allowed her to have those extra inches.

She considered the possibility on lying to the woman, but she didn’t have the leverage to truly keep the ruse up for very long. Not with Henry already knowing more than enough. So, against all her better judgement, the one who had been trained to hide as much information away, she parted her lips.

“It’s about my son. The one I adopted ten years ago.”

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: *pointing at the “Tease” sign I’m thinking on putting permanently next to my little corner of this site*


End file.
